Gred & Forge's 'Christmas Song'
by Oriondruid
Summary: I am posting this little Christmas story now, in summer, as it has been a particularly bad spring and early summer here in Britain. What with the months of foul weather, the Banking Crisis, Euro Crisis, Austerity, Political, Media & Financial Corruption Crisis and the oncoming End Of The World I thought we could all use a little out of season Christmas Cheer. Blessings All.


**Gred & Forge's 'Christmas Song'.**

By Oriondruid

**A Gentle Warning: **This little story contains a song which, whilst certainly not indecent or sexual in any way, some 'sensitive' readers might find shocking. You have been warned, Gred and Forge after all are not famous for their good taste. ;o)

**Authors note: **I am posting this little Christmas story now, in summer, as it has been a particularly bad spring and early summer here in Britain. What with the foul weather, with it's continuous rain, gales, floods and even minor twisters in some places all through spring and right up 'till now, with records for bad weather tumbling each month. Also the banking and Euro crisis with the associated never ending stories of financial and political corruption is so depressing here. It all seems to be offering the very real possibility, if not prabability, of imminent total financial meltdown throughout Europe and here in the UK and is already causing severe austerity measures and general depression. In the face of all this gloom I thought a little Christmas cheer might help us Brits and Europeans on this website and this story, which I forgot to finish and post last Christmas was sat on my hard drive and just need a little polishing up. I'll give you the true story of the featured and very real song at the end, if you get that far without giving up in disgust. ;o)

**Disclaimer: **_With regard to the following story, the characters and settings in this story belong entirely to the works and 'world' created by the wonderful J.K. Rowling. This pastiche is respectfully dedicated to Ms. Rowling and is not intended in any way for commercial distribution, being written by myself as a fan entirely for fun. It is a genuine pleasure and privilege to be able to 'play' for a while in Ms. Rowling's world and I thank her for the opportunity and her generosity to her fans in permitting such fanfiction._

**Gred & Forge's 'Christmas Song'.**

It was only a couple of days to go before the school would 'break up' for the Christmas Holiday, when the Hogwarts pupils would be boarding the Hogwarts Express to go home for two weeks until the New Year began. To all intents and purposes the school year was already over, as the teachers also were getting into the holiday spirit and even Professor Snape was setting far less work for the pupils to do in the evenings. As a result the children had more liberty to spend planning their holiday and generally enjoying more free time.

In the Gryffindor common room most of the pupils had finished their small amount of assigned work and were sat chatting when Fred and George Weasley appeared, coming down the stairs from their dorm with Fred carrying a machine, one that was obviously of muggle origin. The muggleborns amongst those assembled instantly recognised it as a battery powered 'boom box' type cassette tape player.

George raised his voice to a level where everyone present could hear him and said, "Listen up everyone. To mark the start of the 'festive season' Fred and I have written a Christmas Song in celebration and which we'd like to perform as a little present to our fellow Gryffindors, in honour of the true spirit of Christmas. As we always like to do things as professionally as possible, especially our pranks, we borrowed this marvel of muggle teknogolgy from one of the second year muggleborns, Greta Spinoza, thanks Greta!"

Greta smiled, acknowledging George's thanks, blushing a little because she had a secret crush on George.

Fred then spoke saying, "By various nefarious means my esteemed brother and myself got hold of what the muggles call a karaoke tape of their popular Christmas songs, to provide a backing track for our own song, which we wrote to fit one of the tunes on it . Whatever you do please refrain from using any strong magic nearby whilst the machine is running, as it'll probably blow up and we'll have to buy Greta a new one.

The assembled Gryffindors watched as Fred set up the muggle device on a table and placed a small rectangular object into an orifice on the front, which had opened up as he pushed a button on the device. Then he joined his brother, who was standing next to the wall by the big common room fireplace with it's merrily blazing logs.

The twins were both identically and casually dressed, in cream coloured 'chino' type trousers or 'slacks' and wearing identical, somewhat, 'over-colourful' Christmas sweaters, of the sort that all doting Aunts, muggle or magical, inflict upon their nephews as unwanted Christmas presents. As the astonished Gryffindors looked on they both pulled chunky tobacco pipes out of their pockets and began puffing on them, although thankfully they didn't contain any tobacco and were not even lit.

Leaning nonchalantly on the wall, and pointing the stems of their pipes towards her the pair both spoke together, in uncanny synchronisation as they sometimes did, saying, "Hermione, since you're the muggleborn sitting nearest and will know how to work it would you kindly start the machine. The tape's already wound-on to the right track."

Hermione smiled, got up and walked over to the machine, and as asked she confidently pushed the start button. As she did so slightly 'smaltzy' violin music began to play...

The twins then started to sing, in a very odd fashion, crooning out a strange meaningless repeated line in harmony and in an extremely 'relaxed', and gentle style...

_Ba ba ba boom, boom._

_Ba ba ba boom, boom._

Hermione and a few other muggleborns, despite their young age, recognised the old fashioned style of the 'old crooner', Bing Crosby! Just how the hell had Fred and George ever heard of him? Hermione wondered. Then, remembering Molly's somewhat 'retro' taste in music she thought, "She's probably got his Christmas Album on an old 78 rpm record, for the wind up gramophone at The Burrow."

_Ba ba ba boom, boom._

_Ba ba ba boom, boom._

The the twins went on as the 'intro', such as it was, ended and melody and the song 'proper' began. George sang the first few lines, as Fred pretended to puff his pipe...

_Children roasting by an open fire_

_Told 'em not to get too close_

_Tiny tots with your clothes all ablaze_

_Merry Christmas to you._

Fred took the next lines...

_Grandma's dangling from the Christmas tree_

_Thirteen amps and she turned blue_

_I said **don't** try and turn on those lights_

_Merry Christmas to you._

Then both twins continued together in harmony, singing...

_And there's an ambulance on it's way_

_Coming to take the smouldering body parts away_

_And all the relatives are gonna cry_

_Who'd have believed that half the family might die?_

_So I'm offering this simple prayer_

_For muggles, witches, wizards too_

_Safety First when you celebrate Yule_

_Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to you!_

The backing music carried on alone for a while reiterating the tune as an instrumental break, whilst the twins returned to leaning on the wall, nonchalantly puffing on their pipes. The Gryffindors looked on, some aghast at the song, with dropped jaws and shocked expressions, whilst others like Ron and Seamus were helplessly giggling at the macabre lyrics. Then Fred and George joined back in with the tape, repeating the last two sections of the song and bringing their 'performance' to a conclusion.

By then most of the house members seemed to have got over their surprise and had 'got it' and began to clap the twins, although a few still seemed a bit shocked. It was certainly not a performance that anyone who witnessed it would ever forget.

Eventually the hubbub calmed down and the karaoke machine's list of taped songs was examined by some of the Gryffindors, many of the muggle Christmas song tunes on it were found to be songs also known to magical folk and so the machine was used to provide backing for a more general sing-song in the common room, which most present joined in with.

The only real after effect of the twins 'performance' was that for the next two days, before the pupils caught the Hogwarts Express home, many Gryffindors could be heard wandering along the school's corridors whilst going between classes, crooning...

_Ba ba ba boom, boom._

_Ba ba ba boom, boom._

Much to the teacher's puzzlement.

Author's Note 2: As promised, here's the true story of this 'charming' little ditty. :o)

Back in the 1990's I was a far more 'active' campaigning eco-Druid and used to attend a 'Pagan Moot' gathering called Talking Stick once a month in Central London. This was then the most famous and best organised social gathering of like minded Pagans in the capital and we had the lovely old upstairs bar of the Princess Louise pub in Holborn for our exclusive use. There guest speakers gave fascinating talks on many subjects across a huge number of topics, from Ancient Egyptian Deities to magical beliefs and superstitions amongst the Water Gypsies, the narrow boat operating and dwelling canal worker communities of the Victorian and Edwardian era. These ran via S&M sexuality to far 'fluffier' subjects like Fairy Lore. Also there were usually announcements of other upcoming events and gatherings, plus there was much time for simply socialising. And no, by the way, we never used to sacrifice goats in the pub, (The barman would've objected, only joking!), nor did we worship satan, since none of us believed in that old fashioned, sad, dark reflection 'mirror image' version of Christianity.

Once a year we held our Saturnalia, an ancient Yuletide celebration, which in our modern format was a chance for members of our group to show off any entertainment talents they had, a sort of Witches and Wizards Have Got Talent, if you like. :o)

At one of these events one year a version of the above song was performed by the brilliant Chris Gosselin, who'd written it for the occasion. Chris, amongst other things, was a brilliant musician, a 3rd Degree Wiccan priest, a writer, raconteur, conjurer (muggle style), qualified psychologist, magical historian et etc. Indeed an all round polymath and thoroughly 'good egg'. The version of the song I have written above is very slightly modified and consists of what I can remember of his performance, (I had drunk several pints of Newcastle Brown!), and a little of my own 'reconstruction work'.

Sadly Chris 'went on' several years ago and he never recorded this song on either of his two albums of brilliant comic Pagan songs, Rite Comical and Playing The Fool, probably because it is a little 'extreme'. It is probably best only being performed to an audience of rowdy Witches, Druids and Wizards of various types slaughtered on 'Firewhiskey' and Old Peculiar. ;o)

As a result of Chris' sad passing I am not able to get the full 'original version, of the song, but I think the 'restored' one above is close.

Just thought you might be interested.

Many Blessings All.

Oriondruid, (John).


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